too much like those unlike him. He was still a lie.
A flash revealed an object near the cold wet. A shard of hard
material. It glinted in the flash.
Peron grasped it with his weakening hand. His vision was
blurring. He swayed from side to side. In brief reflections
illuminated by lightning flashes, he saw from the corner of his eye
one like him lifting a shard of metal to his face. His vision blurred,
and he swayed.
Everything went black.
❖
This cold wet was not bad compared to that night, Peron noted.
It was calm. It did not pour from the ink-black sky. It lay quietly on
the soft green below. Peron did not like the cold wet, usually, but
did not mind this, for some reason. The wet felt pleasant upon his
feet as he trudged across the field, bearing bruises from the night
before.
Peron had failed to wound himself severely. His exhaustion had
gotten the better of him and he had dropped the shard. When he
had finally awoken, caked in mud and dirt, he glanced at the shard
and considered finishing what he started. But he didn’t. He walked
away.
This walking took him far away. He didn’t know where. He
simultaneously feared and desired that he would stumble upon the
hive. But he was lost. He had no idea where it was. And even then,
he should never return. They would not accept him. An instinct
within him told him to obey the Queen, even in this.
So, he walked. That’s all there was to it. Never had he had a
destination and that hadn’t changed now. No goal. Only wandering.
When he felt the pang of hunger, he found grubs and plants to eat.
He did this mechanically, his hive-wrought brain dominating him
with instinct. He didn’t feel he wanted to eat. He did it because it
was the thing to do. Maybe that was something that connected him
to the hive? That thought made him long for it even more. He
longed for the routine, those who looked like him, the sense of
belonging – even if in silence. But above all, he longed for the
Queen. Even as she had spurned him, cursing him with a
meaningless name made up on the spot, he loved her as only one
without a choice could.
That made him hate her.
All too often, when we long for something enough, we begin to
hate it for its spurning us. If we didn’t love it, we wouldn’t hate it
for keeping us away. Peron experienced this now, as he made his
way across the green caked in cold-wet.
This was an alien world. There were no caves and very little hard,
shiny stuff. It was green. made up of rolling landscapes with sparse
large plants. Blocking the horizon, only barely, were small hills.
Peron’s journey to nowhere took him over these hills. It had been
but a day but it had felt like a lifetime.
The landscape had not changed. Occasionally, Peron would spot
an oddity. Sometimes, there was hard material like that he had
gathered at the hive. It wasn’t in chunks, though. It was in different
shapes and smooth. Plants grew over some of these oddities. Peron
ate the plants to sustain his instinctual urges. They were bland. Not
as good as the grubs he occasionally found.
As the light in the sky was beginning to fade and Peron felt the
cold start to set in, he spotted the largest oddity of all. Just past a
hillock, he saw an expanse of catacombs. No, not catacombs.
Something else. He proceeded.
At the outskirts of the oddity, he saw how plant-life had
entrenched itself into the crevices of the oddities. Cracks suggested
that this was not meant to be the case. The lush green foliage looked
alien on the hard rock surfaces. Further to the centre of the expanse
of oddities, Peron saw the most peculiar thing of all. It was crafted
of smooth, shining material, dominating the horizon in the shape of
the eggs where his kind were born. He approached it, in awe.
The towering oddities were sparser here, leaving a field of lush
green surrounding the egg. As he reached it, he saw his reflection,
but was too in awe of the construct to find disgust in himself.
He touched it. Smooth, cold. But a pleasant cold. The oddity
showed none of the signs of decay that Peron had become
what seemed a long time, his thoughts were not of the hive and the
Queen. All that he thought of was this colossus, this wondrous
object that shone in the light.
He walked across its edge, his hand never leaving it surface. Then
he felt a dent. He investigated it and heard a click and slide. A hole
opened where previously there had been none. Peron sniffed. Stale
air escaped the structure’s empty black innards. Then it was no
longer black. White light blinded Peron as it blared into life. Pops
echoed from across the structure as the black subsided to reveal
clean, white and silver tunnels within.
Peron held in his breath. Nothing. After the sounds had stopped
and the lights were lit, there were no more sounds but the wind
calmly blowing in the background. With curiousity overwhelming
trepidation, he entered the structure.
Clang, clang, clang.
His chitinous feet rang out on the hard floors. The air was cold,
but Peron didn’t mind. He was too entranced with the novelty of
everything around him. Nothing was this smooth in the hive. He
stroked his hand across the wall, taking in the texture.
A beep.
The wall opened. On the other side of the hole, Peron saw even
more oddities. Blinking lights of various colours, many he had never
seen before. A large square dominated the space, made of a smooth
material that he had never seen before. He reached to stroke it, but
as he touched it, it sprang to life.
Peron jumped back, but only a little.
The square went from black to a light blue, with white symbols
scattered across it. Next to a set of symbols was something he did
recognise, however. It was one like him. But what was it doing inside
the square?
Peron reached to touch it. And then the square changed. In it,
those like him moved around working. Peron didn’t try to
communicate with them. But what were they doing here?
A bodiless voice started speaking, but Peron didn’t understand
the words. He listened intently, presuming that the
incomprehensible narrator was describing something about those
like him. He could not help but want to know more. He felt a
crushing oppression at not being able to understand the voice. It
was as bad as not being able to communicate with those like him.
Without any possibility of doing that, he now desperately wanted to
at least learn about himself and those like him who he could never
connect with.
But the voice was meaningless, and as Peron watched those like
him move on the square, he could not help but stand completely
frozen, as he wept without tears.
❖
Language is a tool to be used. To be learnt. Comparable to how
Peron had
learnt to use the drill that had been his tool at the hive,
he began to learn the language of the voice. As he learnt the
language of the voice, he was then able to connect it to symbols on
the square – what he learnt was called a screen. Learning these
symbols, he was then able to enable more of his education. He
found symbols that led him to educational videos. With these, he
was able to learn more and more.
He did not count the days. His only measurement was the
immeasurable level of competence he was gaining in this language.
Sitting or standing, his eyes darted across the screen – absorbing
everything.
Through this screen, he learnt what he was. The narrators, who
he learnt were not like him, but much softer and varied looking,
called his kind Gleran. Peron could not help but note the irony that
he had to learn about what he was from someone unlike him. But
he was thankful to these beings. They had left this trove of
knowledge for him. While seemingly gone from this world, their
memory enabled him to learn. It gave him a purpose. While he was
unable to truly be like his kind and communicate with the hive, his
mind was able to be put to other things.
With no preoccupation with the whims of the Queen, he was
able to absorb information faster, better… A Gleran brain, when
not dealing with the innumerable orders of the hive, was more than
capable of learning the complex ideas of other races. What a waste
that they could not think…usually.
As ashamed as he was of the insult the Queen had levelled at
him, thinker, it was all he did now. He thought about the world. The
oddities – which he came to learn were called buildings, contained
in a town. His place in all of this. The hive…
The last always saddened him, and it was at times like these that
he envied the humans’ – the beings from the screen – ability to cry.
When they were sad, they changed expression so dramatically, as
warm-wet fell from their eyes. Glerans couldn’t do that. Initially,
Peron thought this for the best. But then realised that Glerans
couldn’t cry because they didn’t feel the need to do so. They didn’t
feel anything. But Peron did. And he wanted to cry.
The more he learnt from the videos, the wider the world looked,
and the sadder he became. But it was better than before. The
sadness wasn’t crushing anymore. It was informed. This made it
seem better. It seemed justified.
He longed for more as he learnt about more. He longed for the
world on the screen, a vibrant world of people who talked to each
other. He longed to be human, to have others like him who could
communicate without being considered freaks. But above all else,
he still longed for the hive.
Logically, he knew that the hive was not attainable nor desirable.
It had spurned him. He was not like them. He just shared a similar
looking shell. But something deeper drew him to his birth place. His
thoughts told him to stop longing for a void that hated him, but his
gut told him to love the Queen, to get back to work.
He only ventured out of the server facility, what he found the
egg-shaped building to be called, when he was hungry. It was not
difficult to find sustenance. As he had learnt from videos, Glerans
were hardy and could eat almost anything organic to sustain
themselves. The humans seemed to admire his kind. Glerans were
tougher, sturdier. They could move faster. Withstand more pain and
torment. Peron didn’t feel any pride from this.
He admired the humans. He envied them. He loved them.
Without even speaking to or being near any of human, he felt a close
bond to them. They taught him. They spoke to him, even if
indirectly. They entertained him. The humans on the screen gave his
overly developed insect mind meaning.
The sun was setting on this unknown day as he re-entered the
facility, chewing on a root. He was excited. He had a new set of
videos to watch.
He did as he had done many times before, sitting cross legged
with his bottom pair of arms crossed as he used the controls to
select which video he wanted to view.
He picked the new video. While his understanding of the
symbols was still crude, he was able to make out the title to be:
“Hostilities Rise”.
Sounded exciting. He hoped it was an entertainment video, like
some he had watched before. Those were the best nights – gnawing
on a root while humans from long ago performed for him.
The video started but was not an entertainment vid. It had the
format of what Peron recognised to be news footage. The symbols
of a news channel appeared, red and blue with a few words that
Peron still didn’t understand. He was a little disappointed, but didn’t
let that get him down. News footage could also be exciting. It had
been his best way of learning about the humans that had lived here
before.
A human with long-dark hair appeared. It was a usual figure in
the news footage. It was normally prim and neat. Peron dared think
it looked pretty. But its calm and immaculate façade was gone now.
It looked worried, terrified even. Condensation collected on its
brow. Its outfit was dishevelled. Flames in the background.
“This is an emergency report for Colony Vulzthan Prime. Gleran
drones, recently peaceful, have attacked the settlement. Previously
primitive, they are now armed with energy weapons. Militia forces
are keeping them at bay, but can’t forever. We need to evacuate…”
She was crying now. She had never done that before.
“Vulzthan is lost. Protect your families. Go!”
Screams. Those like him, Glerans, charging onto the screen.
Flashes. Black.
Peron sat still as the interface asked if he was ready for the next
video. He just stared, as the light of the room dimmed to save energy
– with only the silent screen to illuminate him in the darkness that
ensued.
❖
The Queen had taken everything from him. But she had given
him life. But he was an accident. But she had spared him. But out
of mockery, not mercy.
She was his Queen.
She was his enslaver.
She hated him.
He loved her.
He hated that he loved her.
He loved the humans. She had killed the humans.
His kind had killed the only people he had ever felt a connection
with. The brown and green horde had fell upon those who had
taught him everything, without him ever even needing to ask them
to do so. As he scoured the archives, he could find nothing in the
servers past the date of that news footage. He hoped that they had
somehow escaped, but he knew better. His hive was strong. The
Queen was perfect. Glerans like him, she might spare. But human
interlopers? They would be crushed – utterly.
But his kind didn’t do this. They couldn’t be blamed. They didn’t
act. They served, completely. Could someone without choice be
blamed for their actions? Could a tool be bla
med for the actions of
its user?
Peron did not hate the Glerans. He did not hate the hive. The
hive was his. The Glerans were his kin.
Peron hated the Queen.
She was the reason behind everything. She was his mother. The
voice in his head. The reason he wanted to work. The reason why
he was a Gleran. The reason he was not like the rest of his kind. He
was a freak by no fault of his own. It was all her fault. She controlled
his kin. Kept them slaves to pheromones.
She had killed his love.
He would kill her.
Without the hive mind, his people could be free. Without the
pheromone network, they could be like him. He would no longer
be a freak. He would no longer be the only thinker. This is what
Peron had learned in his fevered studying of the human files on his
species.
As his knowledge of the human symbols grew, he was able to
move from videos to writings. He consumed dossiers on the Gleran
hive, learning everything he could about himself and his kind. The
humans knew a lot about Glerans, and he could fill in the blanks.
What he had learnt was that Glerans were controlled using
pheromones emitted by the Queen. The Queen would spread these
pheromones through a network of drones, infecting each other with
her will. Gleran brains were large and developed, perfectly able to
process countless signals and pheromone orders at once. Peron
wanted to ensure that his kin’s brains could be put to better use.
From the human archives, he learnt more than just about the
lives of his kin and humans themselves, he learnt about death and
violence. He had had the intuitive sense of death before. The
cocoon in which he had grown up had instilled such primitive basics
in him already.
But the human archives on history, war and weapons had taught
him how to cause death. Now, he fell asleep and dreamt of stabbing
the Queen that he still could not help but love and hate. He
imagined the golden slime that would ooze out of her hulking husk.
The glow would cease. That mesmerising, irresistible golden glow.
He would cry. He would want to die. But it had to be done. He
loved her, and hated her for it.
In the human archives, he found an explanation for why the
Glerans refused to work in the cold-wet, the rain. He also realised
why he instinctively hated water. It interfered with the pheromones.